


Whatever Remains

by the_night_light



Series: Step Upon A Stair [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Epic Friendship, Gen, Illogical Logic, John Finds Out, Step Upon a Stair Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 07:49:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_night_light/pseuds/the_night_light
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After John nearly dies, his friend Sherlock Holmes determines the only logical course of action is to ensure neither of them ever has to worry about John ever dying ever again. Now the only problem is convincing John....</p>
<p>Part One of "Step Upon a Stair"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one is set after Season One of "Sherlock", but before Season Two. Enjoy!

I had chosen the restaurant for the views onto the boulevard, the candlelight and the privacy.

There was candlelight and boulevard in spades, but I suppose when you’re sitting like a goldfish near a twelve foot high pane of glass set against the intersection of two very public streets, privacy should at least be questioned. More so if your best friend is a brilliant detective with apparently too few cases and who, more importantly, is surely insane.

“I think he’s pointing at you.” My date, Catherine, said and gestured towards Sherlock with her wine glass.

“No. He must want someone else. Someone without reservations that took a month to….” I hazarded a glance up and saw Sherlock gesturing like a windmill from me to up the street. There I saw the semi-truck that should not have been allowed onto London streets, the police lights flashing like fireworks behind it. I am no genius, but it does not take a Sherlock Holmes to see a truck that size at that speed would never make the tight turn around the boulevard. It would lose control and jackknife into the buildings-and the restaurant. “Oh, god!”

I stood and shouting and pointing and finally running, made my way with a crowd dressed to the nines away from sure disaster. I remember pushing my date into safety as the awful sounds of breaking and shattering, cracking and shrieking that had pursued us this whole way caught up to me and seemed to swallow everything whole.


	2. Chapter 2

It turned out the truck contained the nexus of a counterfeiting ring that Scotland Yard (and therefore Sherlock Holmes) had been chasing for months. I did recall Sherlock growling at maps and Lestrade in equal measure-they couldn’t connect the distribution of the money to anything. It seemed they finally had.

I didn’t know this as I lay beneath the rubble, but I suppose it would have been something with which to pass the time had I. Finally, sobbing from the pain, I was pulled from the wreckage. “John.” A voice-Sherlock’s voice-said.

“You bastard.” I gasped and tasted my own blood. “You did that on purpose. You never…liked Catherine…”

“I assure you, I would have withstood a legion of Catherines if you could have been spared that.”

Paramedics closed in and pushed Sherlock to the side. “You owe me a dinner reservation…” I mumbled, half delirious. As I watched him turn to stare at my blood staining his hands, the darkness closed in again.

It turned out the building that had fallen on me had broken my collar bone, nearly broken through my sternum, not to mention there were several cracked ribs. Sherlock didn’t visit for a week and when he at last appeared next to my hospital bed one evening, he explained he had rounded up the entire criminal ring behind the counterfeiting. I nodded at the right places, but my heart wasn’t in it. Sherlock abruptly cut off his exposition. “How are you feeling?”

“Not bad. Considering a little more and my heart could have been punctured by my own sternum. I’m glad to be alive.”

“Yes. As am I.”

“You look awful. When did you last sleep? Eat?”

“Boring.”

“Necessities for us mere mortals.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

I laughed, but he still looked somber. “Sherlock, what is it?”

He glanced around the hospital – from the bouquets brought by Stamford and Mycroft, Lestrade and Catherine and back to me. “Everyone thinks of mortality from time to time, do they not?”

“From time to time? Sherlock, when I moved in you had a human skull decorating your fireplace, you have bits of corpses next to the lettuce, for god's sake - most of your fame is owed to thinking of the problems caused by other people's mortality!"

"Mortality in general is boring. I mean to solve the problem of your mortality."

"Mortality, subclass John Watson, is it? Alright, but this is not my first near-death experience. You know that. I've already thought all that through before-in depth mind you, in Afghanistan. It's nothing new under the sun, Sherlock. If it happens, it happens. It's fine. I'm fine.”

“Is it? I have thought about it, John, from many angles – and I have concluded I don’t want you to die.”

“Thank you, Sherlock, coming from you that means a lot, but I am alive – thanks in no small part to you. You really are like a bloodhound sometimes, you know that? I’m just in need of a bit of rest. I do not plan on dying anytime soon, I promise you.”

Sherlock reached out and adjusted a pillow I hadn't voiced my complaint out loud about, then stood. “As do I.” He said and was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

A month later, as Lestrade made a visit during my convalescence at Bakers Street, I learned from him that Sherlock had refused to take any cases from Scotland Yard. “Not only from me. I have heard he is refusing to take anyone on.”

“It has been rather quiet.” I agreed and couldn’t remember the last client I had seen in the common rooms. “But Sherlock seems preoccupied all of the time. He must have a client.”

“If you find out who, you tell me. It must be something big if Sherlock is refusing to look into the Dhurer-Gardner case.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“He has! And no less than 3 others of the highest profile, most unsolvable cases that I have put before his upturned nose. Tell him he can have his pick, if he just texts me back.”

“I will.” And I did. I had awoken later that evening and as had been the custom for the past month, Sherlock was there to hand me a hot cup of tea and take-out.

When I told him about Lestrade’s visit he shrugged, unconcerned. “He is correct. I have had no clients.”

“Why not?”

“I have other things on my mind.”

I lowered my fork. “Sherlock – You have been a true friend and a surprisingly affective nurse to me this past month, but I am already recovered enough to  nearly go back to normal.”

“Yes.”

“Then you will take Lestrade’s case?”

“No.”

I blinked and leaned forward, wincing at the pull in my ribs. Sherlock’s eyes widened and he stared hard at me. “But…you will take a case soon, won’t you?”

His eyes were sharp and focused. “I have not yet decided.”

“If this is about what happened….”

“It is.”

“Sherlock! Listen to me. I cannot count the number of people you have saved, the number of cases you have solved. You are irreplaceable in your field!”

“And you do not understand what it was like for me to see you in that rubble and to think you might have died when I could have prevented that.”

“You could _not_ have prevented it! We’ve already talked about that.”

“And if I could prevent it? Would you let me?”

I shook my head wearily. “What does that even mean?”

We both broke off until finally Sherlock sighed into the silence. “Very well. I have been thinking to take one little, peculiar case for some time, but it is on the condition that you yourself must help me on said case and that once it is resolved, you promise to consider what I have just asked.”

“If I must.”

“You must.”


	4. Chapter 4

There has never been a point predicting where one of Sherlock’s cases would begin and no point in trying to wade precociously into the points along its course. Nonetheless, I still helplessly questioned him for the third time as Sherlock worked and I worked to keep the flashlight aloft without disabusing a half-recovered pectoral girdle. “Is this really necessary?” I said.

“Mr. Garrideb said his brother was dead and yet he saw him on no less than seven separate occasions in the last two weeks.” Sherlock said as he continued his work in a steady and methodically pace. Dirt landed in neat, controlled heaps to the sides of the tombstone.

“Can’t that be attributed to grief?”

“No. Grief would cause delusions in the mind of Mr. Garrideb, but hardly in the mind of his camera phone. He has unaltered, HD footage-there is no mistaking.”

I shrugged. “A lookalike.”

“Perhaps. But it’s easy enough to disprove your doppelganger hypothesis.”

I shook my head. “Couldn’t we have gotten an exhumation order at least?”

“Too much time.”

“Lestrade would have helped you get it tonight!”

“Too much of a bother.”

“Sherlock!”

Pausing, Sherlock leaned on his shovel like character out of Hamlet. “I did say this was a peculiar case, John. It calls for the greatest discretion.”

“But why? It's odd, but it doesn't sound like national security is at stake. I mean - why should this Garrideb contact you of all people? And why should you accept the case? You have said no terrorist ties, no mad hacker whose trying to penetrate the British system. There's not even a serial killer or a touch of blackmail. There is no intrigue at all to excite. It sounds...well...boring. If this brother is alive somehow, by some miracle or mistake, won't the conclusion be nothing more than a family reunion?”

“Oh, but there is intrigue of the darkest sort, John.” The sounds of shoveling commenced and the thin stream of dirt arced across the light of the flashlight like a lost shower of gold. “This case is very unique, especially when compared to my normal line. You see, Mr. Garrideb contacted me out of desperate and final resort. He is afraid.”

“Of his dead brother? Well, that is something, then.”

“Exactly.” There was a hallow thud and I leapt up as best I could and held the flashlight high over the hallowed-out grave. Sherlock had uncovered the coffin. On his hands and knees he cleared off the top, feeling for a grip to open the lid. When he found none, he stood, grabbed hold of the shovel and before I could protest, used it to break the coffin lid open.

He looked into it and then up at me. “Empty.” I said.


	5. Chapter 5

I have to confess I was more than a little glad to be out of Bakers Street and more so to be on what I was sure would prove to be quite the memorable adventure with Sherlock. I said as much to my friend, but he seemed withdrawn and introverted. “What is it?” I asked him.

“I am wondering if I am taking a calculated risk or making a terrible mistake in having taken this case with you.”

“Is there any point in telling you you’re acting like an idiot?”

“Is there any point in telling you that you’re a trusting fool?”

Luckily, we arrived at Nathaniel Garrideb’s house before the conversation could continue. When I say house I suppose I mean mansion and when I say mansion I suppose I mean country estate. It was a rather lonely thing set among the moonlit trees.

Mr. Garrideb himself answered the door and we saw no servants or tenants in the house. Our client was no older then 30, wore glasses and seemed to possess a particularly melancholy air that followed him like a shadow. He welcomed us kindly enough and listened closely as we reported our findings.

“It does not surprise me, Mr. Holmes.” He concluded.

“Nor I.” Said Sherlock.

“But what can I do? I suppose I will have to accept the inevitable.”

“If you listen to me and do exactly what I tell you, then that will not be necessary.”

He blinked at Sherlock through owlish eyes, and nodded. “I suppose you would know about these things. Very well. I am in your hands.”

“You are in Dr. Watson’s hands as well. He will remain with you tonight in your room. I will watch for your brother out here.”

“You believe he will come tonight?”

“Oh, I know he will.”

“Why is that?”

“Because that is how these things go.”

“For you as well?”

Sherlock gave the young man an enigmatic smile and nodded. “Yes.” He turned to me. “Now, John. You will promise me that you will remain with Mr. Garrideb no matter what.”

“Except if you need me, of course.”

“No matter what. Promise me!”

“Very well.” I agreed, but I knew even as I said it that I lied. If Sherlock needed me, I would come.


	6. Chapter 6

Midnight approached without a sound or disturbance. Garrideb lay in his bed, turned on his side and awake. I sat with my drawn revolver near the door.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Garrideb said abruptly, not turning towards me. “My brother and I were going into business. We had been collecting patents for ages and were ready to open a software business the likes of which would change the course of nations. We were so excited.”

“I am sorry. Was he ill?”

“No. Alexander was attacked. Neither of us saw it coming. How could we?”

“You can’t. Crime can be heartless and thoughtless and senseless.”

“It wasn’t crime, Dr. Watson – it was impossibility! How do you see coming something that doesn’t exist? How do you talk to someone once you have seen it without sounding mad? How do you look at the world afterwards and not see darkness where there should be light?” I heard him shift on the bed and turned to him. “But you do know, don’t you? I can talk to you, can’t I?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You know Mr. Holmes.”

“I like to say I know him quite well after all these months.”

“Then you understand why I called him. You know what he is.”

“Say that last bit again.”

Garrideb stood and walked over to me. Kneeling he gazed up at me and did not seem mad, only heartbroken. “You know what he is, so you understand what will happen tonight?”

I narrowed my eyes. “What is that?”

“My brother will come back for me and make me what he is.”

“Which, just for the record, is what, exactly?”

Garrideb seemed to have lost his voice, he shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut-which was for the best as the sudden maelstrom that erupted outside the room would’ve drowned out anything he had said either way. Pulling him behind me, I raised my revolver, tense and ready.

From outside the door came what could only be described as a guttural and desperate cry. The door shuttered dangerously as something repeatedly threw its weight against it. On his knees behind me, Garrideb covered his ears and choked back his terror.

After a horrendous crash, the door abruptly stilled and although Garrideb and I waited, no other sounds came. “Sherlock…” I whispered and moved forward.

Garrideb grabbed hold of my hand. “He said to wait here with me.”

“I am not leaving you. I will be right back.”

“Please!”

“I will be right back.”

Tears were flowing freely down his cheeks, but he let me go. As quiet as I could, I unlocked the door and moved into the hallway. At first there was nothing to see except the shattered ruins of the fight. Broken bits of chandelier still twirled on their lopsided perches, spinning from the momentum of the previous battle, causing a strange, living movement to the dim light it provided. Sherlock and Alexander Garrideb were at the end of that hallway, Sherlock on his back, the younger man arced over him, hands pressing his shoulders into the ground.

I raised my gun. “Get off him.” I said. “Now.”

The younger Garrideb tensed and slowly he sat back upon his heels, leaving Sherlock in sight and wounded, but plainly alive.

“John…” Sherlock whispered, “Don’t.” I hadn’t even realized my finger was pressing back on the trigger. I let my arm fall to my side and found myself dumbstruck and staring at the young man whose face was covered with my friend’s blood and whose teeth were simply too long and too sharp to be human.


	7. Chapter 7

“That was your plan the whole time,” Nathaniel Garrideb said. He had made tea and it sat untouched before us, a nod to normalcy in the madness of that night. “You were planning on letting him feed on you so he wouldn’t…”

“Exactly.” Sherlock said, his voice as unaffected as ever. “There was no true intention in harming you as he didn’t recognize you as anything other than a means to an end. A young, hungry vampire is weak, but smart. Family tends to merely be weak. Once he had fed you would have more than likely died and that would have been that.”

“Oh.” Nathaniel looked pale.

“I am sorry, Nat.” said Alexander Garrideb. He had cleaned the blood off his face and his teeth weren’t so pronounced somehow anymore. He looked like an ordinary and rather frightened young man-if one ignored the fact he sat there in his own blood-spattered funeral clothes, that is. “I just remember thinking I wanted to see you again. That’s all. I didn’t….I didn’t mean it.”

Nathaniel’s eyes filled again with tears, but he managed to give the smallest of nods.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Contributing at last to the conversation, John? But an excellent question. Now Nathaniel and Alexander, you can remain as much apart or together as you desire. Think of it as a disease. Vampirism can be managed. What has changed and not changed can also be managed, as well.”

We left the Garrideb Estate soon after. No one had touched their tea, but the brothers had remained seated at the table, quietly, and tentatively talking like two souls guiding each other out of the dark.

Sherlock and I drove back to Bakers Street in near total silence. Once, Sherlock had endeavored, “John…?” but seemed to change his mind and instead let the question drop.

Back at the flat, as if nothing as small as my conception of the nature of reality hadn’t been blasted to metaphysical bits, Sherlock made tea and toast. I ate, Sherlock sat and read the paper, answered texts and generally left me to chew and stare ahead through the wallpaper and into the unseen.

I cleared my throat and said at last, “There were two conditions to the case, right? I go in with you and afterwards, we talk about what you had asked.”

Shelock paused, then tossing aside his phone, pulled his legs under him and turned his attention to me. “Yes. That’s right.”

“So let’s talk. Firstly – Alexander bit you, did he not?”

“He did. You saw it yourself.”

“I saw myself that was a deep bite, but it’s gone now. There’s no wound.”

“That is correct.”

“And you knew, didn’t you? What he was? You knew the nature of the case when Nathaniel had called you?”

“I knew. It is why he contacted me. There are few options in this area, you understand.”

“No, I do not understand!” I stopped, gripped my hands together in front of me and when I was calm enough, continued. “It makes no sense. You live by your wits. You are a master logician – a devoted scientist – why would you let yourself be pulled into anything to do with anything as delusional as the so-called supernatural?”

“I accept the facts, Watson. I follow them wherever they go – including down the rabbit hole.”

“Alright – but _why_ , Sherlock?”

Looking calm and absolutely controlled, Sherlock answered, “I can so _easily_ believe, as you put it, because I have irrefutable evidence based on my own firsthand experience. For you see, what Nathaniel Garrideb feared would happened to him-that his recently dead brother would find him and turn him-was exactly what had happened to me.”


	8. Chapter 8

I suppose I didn’t know what to expect next. Had this been a novel, some deep, introspective moment would have unfolded in some raw and distinctly literary way. Had this been a movie, there would have been some subtle shift in music, lighting, mood. My heart had started to pound, that was a shift alright, but I didn’t know why. Or maybe I did. I wasn’t scared, I was shocked and I was angry because it was unlike Sherlock to weave such an elaborate and obviously untrue _lie_. Unless….

He watched me closely as I sat beside him on the couch, as I put my mouth to his ear. “Is there a camera in the room?” I asked. He raised an eyebrow. “The Garrideb case was only the tip of some delusional vampire serial killer, is that it? We’re under his surveillance and you can’t let your act drop until we find the cameras? Alright. Here’s the plan, I will calmly leave and explain it to Mrs. Hudson and ask her to….”

Even as I had been rambling on, Sherlock had rolled his eyes, grabbed my arm, pushed back the sleeve, bared sharp teeth…and bit me.

I convulsed away from him, crying out as I rolled off the couch and onto my injured side. Sherlock immediately grabbed my hands and stopped me from truly re-injuring myself like a panicked idiot. In my defense, I cannot say a little panic is not uncalled for when your best friend bites you and holding you bodily down on the ground with his own weight, cries “Please! John!” with your blood still on his mouth which, by the way, is full of inhuman, sharp pointy teeth!

Mrs. Hudson heard us, but when she appeared in the doorway and observed us, her anxious inquiry turned into a gasp. She said, “Oh, dear!” and apologizing profusely sped out of the room.

Finally, worn out, I slumped back, trying to cradle my cracked ribs, my throbbing shoulder. Sherlock had vanished, but returned a second later with a prescription from my medicine cabinet and a fresh circle of gauze. I gratefully swallowed the offered pill and lay there until it took effect. Sherlock didn’t seem to mind my absence of cooperation, he carefully cleaned and wrapped the wrist he had bitten. At some point, he must have wiped my blood off his lips, for when I looked at him, he was himself again, albeit uncharacteristically disheveled and with a wild look in his eyes.

Touching the finished wrappings, I stared at him. “You bit me.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a vampire.”

“I am.”

“And you don’t want me to die.”

“Excellent grasp of the facts, John.”

“Shut up. Does this mean what I think it means?”

“That it would be wise to prescribe yourself an antibiotic cream for that bite in the morning?”

“That you bit me to change me into…one of you?”

He shook his head and sat heavily besides me, his knees up below his chin. “It is not that simple, John. But I meant what I said. I do not want you to die. If I could prevent that…I would. Now that you have full disclosure, you can give me your knowing consent."

“I wouldn’t even know what I would be asking for, Sherlock. I could wake in the morning and find I had switched my medicines last night.”

“You will not.”

“Or maybe that I just went out of my mind - Because this is not possible.”

“And yet here I am.”

“ _Sherlock_ …!” I gasped and my voice cracked.

“Just say you’ll think about it.”

He stared hard at me, poised for refusal. “Fine. We’ll do this your way. I promise I’ll think it over-again-now that I've been suitable...informed... Just don’t bite me anymore!”

“Excellent” He said, but I noted, as he helped me to my feet and smiled at me in in obvious relief, that he had made no promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it! Please review and keep an eye out for the sequel, coming soon!


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